How to distinguish between the "strong" and "concentrated" coffee

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"Strong" is one of the most common words used to describe coffee. What are the characteristics of strong coffee? How to make "strong" coffee? Does strong coffee necessarily have a high caffeine concentration?

What does "thick" mean?

In the coffee world, “strong” is a specific term with a specific definition, and it doesn’t just mean your run-of-the-mill bitter strong or high-caffeinated strong.

What needs to be avoided here is that bitterness does not come from the concentration of coffee. The bitterness comes from the raw beans themselves and also from roasting.

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Sometimes, bitterness can be confused with burnt smell, which may be the result of over-roasting the coffee, or extracting it with water that is too hot, or it may be because the brewed coffee is left on the hot plate of the coffee machine for too long.

Bitterness and burnt notes do not reflect the strength of the coffee, but simply indicate that the taste is less than ideal.

Likewise, a coffee with a high caffeine content does not necessarily mean it is a strong coffee; it just contains a lot of caffeine.

While most people who drink coffee at home get higher caffeine intake by drinking more coffee, the amount of caffeine and the overall strength of the coffee are two different attributes.

Characteristics of strong coffee:

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The concentration of coffee is determined by the amount of soluble substances in it.

There are so many soluble substances in coffee that when the concentration is high, the coffee you drink will be thick and mellow, just like drinking Cabernet Sauvignon red wine.

"Espresso" does not depend on the coffee roasting period, but on the extraction of coffee.

The strength of the coffee is determined by the ratio of ground coffee to water during the brewing process, and the person holding the coffee pot determines the strength of the coffee. The bitterness in a dark roast alone does not determine whether it is a strong cup of coffee.

Most extraction methods use a coffee powder to water ratio of 1:15-1:18. If you want to try a gradual increase in the concentration of different coffees,

You can first brew a cup of coffee using a powder-water ratio of 1:18, then use the same extraction method, only changing the powder-water ratio to 1:17, keeping other parameters unchanged to extract another cup of coffee, and then compare and taste them.

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When the coffee concentration is too high, the coffee taste will be too strong; although the taste is strong, it will not be sweet enough, and the sour and bitter stimulation will be strong, so it is not easy to feel the flavor of even the best coffee.

For example, when we taste espresso with a powder-liquid ratio of 1:2, the high concentration affects our perception of the original taste of the coffee, and sometimes it hinders us from judging the degree of roasting of the coffee and the overall quality of the coffee.

Only after diluting the coffee can the quality of the coffee be distinguished more easily.

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When the concentration is too low, the sourness, sweetness and bitterness of the coffee will be weak, the flavor will not be obvious, and the taste will be thin.

Can espresso also be under-extracted?

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Espresso is either made with a low coffee-to-water ratio or is determined by the coarseness of the coffee grounds, but this does not mean that the possibility of under-extraction can be completely avoided.

On this issue, it will be easier to understand if you imagine the taste of under-extracted espresso.

The soluble matter in coffee beans accounts for 30% of the whole coffee bean. To extract the ideal flavor, you only need to extract 15%-22% of the soluble matter in the coffee. However, according to different beans and different roasting degrees, the extraction parameters should be adjusted to extract the best flavor of the coffee.

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When the soluble matter extracted from the coffee liquid is less than 15%, even if the coffee has a powder-liquid ratio of only 1:1.5, the coffee is still under-extracted, and the particle size of the coffee powder needs to be adjusted accordingly to achieve the optimal concentration of the coffee.